Finding Serenity: Chapter 1
by LissAngel
Summary: Post BDM, Wash finds himself in the Alliance run Academy and wants to get home. Grace is an original character of mine and cannot be used without permission.


**Chapter 1**

Blinding light greeted opening eyes; eyes that hadn't been open in some time. The room that those eyes blinked and adjusted to was sterile and cold, the bed of the owner of those eyes was laying on was not the most comfortable. The room looked like a cell, to the owner of those eyes, and when that man realized that fact, a groan left his lips. The man in question was none other than Hoban "Wash" Washburne, the pilot of Serenity. Of course he hadn't been a pilot for a few weeks now, but he didn't know that. The last thing Wash remembered was landing the ship on Mr. Universe's little planet, and then a world of blinding pain; everything else was a blank for him.

A strong curiosity drove the tall, sandy blonde man to push himself up. His chest felt so sore, his back felt equally as sore, and finding enough saliva to wet his mouth seemed to be a problem. Had the Alliance captured them? Had they been stopped before the message got out? These questions were spinning in his head as he sat upon that cold cot in that cold grey room.

"Hey…" a whisper made his head snap up. It was a feminine whisper, one that made him jump as he was startled. "…you awake in there?"

"Zoe?" Wash asked in a groggy voice before clearing his throat. "Zoe, that you, sweetie?" Curiosity made him follow the sound of that voice to a vent in the corner down near the floor.

"No, it's not Zoe…" the voice responded almost sternly. "You're awake. Good."

Peeking through the slats of the vent, Wash could see a vague outline of a form, and fingers slipped into the slats of the vent in the next room. All that separated the two of them were two vent covers and a foot of space. "Who are you?"

"Not important." The tone sounded like River's voice, which would make sense if they had been captured, but if that was true, River could have gleaned that he was awake, couldn't she?

"River?" Wash asked timidly, though he doubted he'd get a yes.

The voice went quiet, before Wash saw the vent cover on the other side of the gap get pulled away, replaced by a face that wasn't River's at all, a lovely young woman a few years older than River, with straight dark brown hair and wide blue eyes. She was a beauty, alright, but she wasn't River, "...you know River? River Tam?" There was hope in the young woman's voice.

That made alarms go off in Wash's head, maybe only he was captured, and maybe this was a trick to get to River…then again maybe it wasn't. "She's a passenger on my ship."

"Step back," she waited for Wash to comply, and when he did, he would find the cover of the vent would pop off and skid across the floor. The head of that young woman came through the hole, then the shoulders, and then the rest of her. She stood, a willowy graceful thing, in hospital garb, though not a hospital gown. "My name is Grace, you're at the Alliance Academy, and I'm going to get you out of here."

A moment or two passed with a silent Wash staring at this beauty before him, who apparently knew River. Knowing where he was, was going to take a lot to get his head around too. But after the silence, his first question would be, "…why am I at the Academy?"

"You don't know?" Grace took two steps toward him, she reached out to the hospital garb that he wore, which looked like scrubs really, and she yanked down the top just a little. She was showing him a lattice work of healing scars, though the scars looked like they were from a surgery years ago, they were healed so well. "You were dead. You were put through a massive transplant surgery, you have a new heart, a new lung, and lots of new bones, veins, and blood."

Wash couldn't jerk out of the way of her hand fast enough, she was far too quick for him; even at his full health she would have been too quick. Her hand movement had been a blur to him. Looking down at his own chest, he touched the scars, they looked to be disappearing steadily. "That pain I remember…what was it?"

Grace drew her hand back and she sighed softly, "…a Reaver weapon was all I heard them say. You were impaled in your seat on that ship. Alliance stole away with your body, gave your crew a reaver-carved-up body in place of yours, and thought you could be of some use dead, but of more use alive. They work miracles here." Her last sentence was dripping with sarcasm and disdain; she hated this place.

Wash grew as white as a ghost, he vaguely remembered Zoe's voice crying out for him, but it was distant, almost like he was under the surface of a pool and Zoe was calling to him from above, it was washed out and muffled. "I…I…how?

"No time to fall apart, I need you sane now, Hoban Washburne." She was firm with him, but this was her chance for escape from this living hell. "I have a means of escape, but I needed a pilot, now I have one. As much as I can do, I can't fly a ship alone, or one very well. Are you here with me?" She asked, gripping his shoulders firmly.

Looking up to her eyes, he shook his head out of it; getting out of here and back home was the most important thing he could think of, so he nodded lightly. "I'm here…" he said lightly. But once out of here, the hardest thing would be…finding Serenity.


End file.
